


keep your head up, my love

by sibley (ferns)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Back to School, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 17:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13345938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: It's time for Iris's first day of first grade. Some stuff has changed since Iris left kindergarten.





	keep your head up, my love

Joe watches Iris skip ahead of him, bouncing over the sidewalk like she has clouds for feet. Every now and then she pauses and comes running back to him, eyes huge, to show him whatever it is that she’s picked up off the grass. Usually it’s not something _too_ unsanitary, and it’s cute to watch her eyes light up when she finds a shiny looking bug.

This time, her prize is a bright red ladybug, clinging to the middle of her palm so it doesn’t go flying off while she runs back to him and proudly holds out her hand to show it to him. “Look, Daddy!”

He bends down indulgently to look at it, trying to shove all his worries out of his mind. “It’s beautiful, sweetheart. Why don’t you give it a name and then let it go how I taught you?”

Iris thinks for a moment, looking down at the little insect thoughtfully. “I’m gonna name her… Spotty. Because she has…” Iris counts the spots. “Six spots. So her name is Spotty!” She beams up at Joe. “Say hello to Spotty, Dad.”

“Hello, Spotty,” Joe laughs. “Alright, Spotty probably wants to go back home, so why don’t you let her go?”

Iris carefully tilts her hand so that her fingers are pointing upward and watches Spotty scuttle up her hand and climb onto her middle finger and then hesitate before taking flight. “Why can ladybugs fly? They don’t have wings.”

“They have wings underneath the part with the dots,” Joe explains, slipping his big hand into Iris’s tiny one as the elementary school came into view up ahead. “When they lift up the part with the spots, which is all hard like your fingernails, their wings come out, and they can fly away.”

“Oooooh.” Iris hums before pointing across the street. She clings tighter to Joe’s hand when they cross the street, and Joe resists the urge to turn around and start walking them both in the other direction. This is even harder than Iris’s first day of kindergarten. There’s something in his stomach that doesn’t want him to leave his daughter here where she could be teased and hurt and treated like she’s something _lesser._ At least on the first day of kindergarten he’d known that she would fit right in with the other kids since she already knew most of them and if anybody teased her she would still have some friends. But she hasn’t seen these kids since last spring.

Iris goes quiet when they get to the door of the school, looking up at it with big nervous eyes. Joe pulls her to the side so that they’re not blocking the entryway from the other kids returning after summer break. “Iris? Sweetie? We can go home if you want.” Usually he wouldn’t offer something like this, but he’s _terrified_ for her, and he’s terrified of what this school will do to her. “We can turn around and walk right home.”

Iris hunches her shoulders in, clinging to the sunny yellow straps of her backpack. “Maybe-maybe I should go back to pretending. Just for school. So nobody makes fun of me.”

“No, no, sweetheart-” Joe feels his heart break. “I don’t want you to ever have to go back to pretending, okay? Not for school and not for me and not for anybody, alright? I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were pretending sooner, and I’m sure all your teachers are too. And if anybody picks on you I want you to tell a teacher, or the principal, or me, but I don’t want you to ever have to go back to pretending because someone tried to make you feel bad about yourself.”

Iris sniffles. “I hate pretending,” she admits. “But I hate getting teased _more_ than I hate pretending, I think.”

“I think,” Joe says slowly, “when you get older, you can decide if you want to pretend or not. For some people. If it makes you feel safer to pretend. When it’s safer, I want you to pretend, but only if it’s so you don’t get hurt. And you never have to pretend for me or for anybody else who really loves you.”

“I hate pretending.” Iris starts crying. “I hate it so much.”

“I know you do, honey. That’s why I don’t want you to pretend.” Joe pulls his daughter into a hug. “No more pretending, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers into his chest. He gives her a little squeeze. “What if a teacher we didn’t have a meeting with tries to make me pretend?”

“Then we say what we practiced at home yesterday, okay?” Joe kisses her forehead. He spoke to her teacher and to the principal and the secretary and to the school nurse, but that still leaves a _lot_ of options. “Do you remember what we practiced?”

“Uh-huh.” Iris shuffles her bright green rain boots on the ground. “I remember.” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t want you to go.”

“It’s just like kindergarten, sweetheart,” Joe assures her. “You had fun in kindergarten and you’re going to have fun in first grade, too. It’s not any different.”

“But in kindergarten I was pretending and everybody liked me,” Iris objects. “What if they don’t like me because I stopped pretending?”

“Then they weren’t ever really your friends.” Joe kneels and wipes away her tears with his thumb before he sets his hands on her shoulders. “Do you remember what I told you when you told me the truth? About how I would always love you with all my heart and keep you safe with all my strength? And how anybody who really loves you will do the same just like you do the same for everyone you love? If someone puts you down or is mean to you, then they weren’t really your friend. They didn’t really love you. Okay? They were a bad person.”

Iris nods slowly. “But I don’t want them to be a bad person.”

“I hope there are no bad people in your class or in the school.” Joe stands up. “If there are, then they have to deal with me. If there are too many, then we’ll go to a different school where people will appreciate you.” It would be more money not to go to their neighborhood school, but Joe would do _anything_ for his baby girl. “Are you ready for your first day?”

Iris takes a deep breath and punches the palm of her hand with her fist. “Tell me I’m gonna do great today.”

Joe smiles. “You’re gonna do _great_ today, baby girl.”

Iris cheers and jumps up and down. “I’m gonna do _great!_ I’m gonna be the _best!”_

Joe took her hand again and they walked inside the school together. “That’s right, pumpkin. You’re going to do amazingly. You’re the best daughter in the whole wide world. That's why you're my favorite daughter.”

Iris giggles. “I’m your only daughter, Daddy.” They stop outside of the first grade classroom door, and Joe doesn’t miss the way Iris’s eyes sneak over the the kindergarten classroom across from it. Joe watches her take a shaky deep breath and then stomp her foot. “Let’s do this!”

“That’s the spirit.” Joe gives her another hug and then watches her charge headfirst into the first grade classroom, making a beeline for one of her friends that she hasn’t seen since last year. He automatically grips the doorframe and watches her friend for their reaction, shoulders slumping with relief when the boy reacts first with slight confusion and then visible excitement as he drags Iris over to talk to another girl in their class. That girl looks Iris up and down and it only takes a few seconds for her eyes to light up as she recognizes Iris from last year despite the changes.

Joe watches them sit down together at one of the little tables and lets out a small sigh. Thank _god,_ she’s going to do fine.

* * *

“Today was awesome!” Iris cheers, running in fast circles around Joe’s legs. He’s carrying her black and yellow bumblebee backpack for her, watching her jump in the new puddles that formed while she was at school and he was at work. “Everyone was really nice and we went around the circle and said our names and there were some new students and they're my friends now and everyone knows my new name and Ms. Fishel only called me by my old name twice and she said she was really sorry afterward and gave me candy because she said I deserved it!”

“Candy, huh?” Joe watches Iris zoom away and then come rushing back with a daisy clutched in her tiny hand. No wonder she doesn't seem to have taken a breath since he picked her up from school a few minutes ago, so full of energy she can't seem to sit still for a moment.

“Today was _awesome,”_ Iris repeats. She spins around in a little circle and stomps her boots in a puddle. Joe avoids the splash. “We started reading a book with real, actual, big chapters in it! And we’re gonna be reading it all year! And we’re gonna learn about bugs and insects and spiders later! And we did real math problems! And I drew a picture of Spotty and I made sure it had the right number of spots and everything! And-and I get to sit at a table with my friends and none of them wanted me to go back to pretending to be a boy and-”

Joe can’t contain his smiling. “That’s great. Should we get ice cream to celebrate?”

“Ice cream!” Iris comes charging back, chanting “Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream-”

He’s definitely going to regret this later when it’s time for them to eat dinner and she’s stuffed full of mint chocolate chip, especially since she already got candy from her teacher and more sugar in her system is probably the very last thing she needs right now, but he can’t really bring himself to care. His baby girl is happy. That’s what matters the most. Iris is happy and she doesn’t have to pretend anymore. She'll never have to pretend again.


End file.
